


i just learned my face (but i forgot my name)

by saltytangerine



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Canon Compliant, Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Civil War (Marvel), Established Relationship, M/M, Recovery, bucky is trying to get his memories back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:46:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27099844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltytangerine/pseuds/saltytangerine
Summary: title is from modest mouse "wicked campaign"lead up to steve finding bucky in bucharest.He allots 15 minutes for a shower every third day and by force of habit, washes his clothes in the larger basin in the kitchen. There isn’t much, he doesn’t own much now, but there’s a nagging feeling in the base of his skull that makes him think he never really had much before he spoke Russian.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 10
Kudos: 50





	i just learned my face (but i forgot my name)

**Author's Note:**

> hi, i honestly don't know how to write unless i am sleep deprived?? so here u go.

If he could remember his name, remember who he is and not just pieces of himself, fragments of several lives lived, he might be able to fix himself. He has no idea of his age and he wonders if he is built like a tree and maybe he has rings inside that he could count, and as for the people that surround him, their faces are as alien to him as his own reflection is. 

His apartment isn’t far off from the apartment he had in another life. It’s the same set up, a small kitchen, the remnants of a wall that had been knocked down to give an “open plan” feel. His bed isn’t the same and he can’t quite pin down why-- the mattress has the same lack of springs and it sags in the middle so much so that he can feel the floor if he turns on to his side. Sun doesn’t shine through his windows; he keeps the thin curtains drawn and newspaper taped to the glass-- it sometimes it occurs to him that it might look odd, but in his self imposed isolation, there’s a small part of him that hopes that they will find him, that they’ll take him somewhere and fix his brain, give him back crystal clear memories of that life he knows he must have had. It never crosses his mind that his apartment is so high up that no one would notice the newspaper on the windows anyway. 

His life is governed by rituals now, in search for the man he used to be. A small digital alarm clock gently beeps at 04:55am and immediately he is awake, breathing hard, eyes wide, until he recognises that it is just that, just a simple alarm clock. He doesn’t let it go for too long, lest anyone hears him and his reputation of not existing is ruined by his nature of being an early bird. He only eats a banana before he ties up his shoes and heads out, still bleary eyed now the shock of the alarm has worn off and runs for an hour, hoping that one morning, his lungs will ache, but that day has yet to come and he shies back to the comfort of his apartment just as the city’s usual runners start their own morning ritual. He allots 15 minutes for a shower every third day and by force of habit, washes his clothes in the larger basin in the kitchen. There isn’t much; he doesn’t own much now, but there’s a nagging feeling in the base of his skull that makes him think he never really had much before he spoke Russian. 

Sometimes he feels brand new to the Earth, unsure of how to function in this busy world, but sometimes he feels as old as dirt when he reads history books, as if he is reading of his childhood. He prefers to do what little grocery shopping he does just after the morning rush of commuters and schoolchildren; speaking gently and kindly in Romanian, a language he never knew he could speak until he stepped off the train in Bucharest and a guard asked to see his ticket. Plums and nectarines are his favourite fruit, he doesn’t care for apples despite how cheap they are and with what little money he does bring in, fruit and vegetables are the one area he indulges. Florin, who runs the fruit and vegetable stall tucked away on the edge of the city in one of the smaller markets, keeps punnets of plums, purple and yellow, for the Wednesdays when he comes with a handful of coins and a shy smile. 

Languages burned into his brain is how he gets by now. He has no recollection of learning them, just knowing them and when he put his ad in the local paper for cheap translation services, he made a note to decline offers of translating Russian text for a reason that he doesn’t quite understand. When he thinks of it, the language is dramatic yet spoken through clenched jaws and stern faces and it gives him an unshakeable feeling of dread when his client says “русский.”  
Most of his jobs are translating love letters to English, or checking Romanian articles that have been already translated (mostly by free translation sites) and the mundane nature of sitting on his worn out couch with just the piece of paper with his task on and no dictionary to hand is quietly satisfying. A number of his clients have asked if they could email him their work, but he says that he can’t focus on the screens, he has that “thing” where he can’t read properly like that, and many of them find authenticity in his disinclination towards a computer. 

A girl offers him a cigarette one night, as he walks alone in the evening, past a club. He crosses the road, spotting that she is walking behind him, but in her heels she is faster than he is and she puts a hand on his arm, apparently not noticing the metal through his jacket. 

“Don’t I know you from somewhere?” She smiles as she talks, her eyes glassy and the smell of the club still clinging to the fur collar of her jacket. Her Romanian is spoken with a German accent and she winds her arm around his in a far too familiar manner. 

“I don’t think so.” His jaw is tight, he can feel the pull of his muscles in his neck, his throat drying. He doesn’t shake her off though-- she is drunk and if anyone wanted to shoot him, they would have done so by now, unless her plan is to murder him with overfamiliarity. 

“I do, and I believe last time we met, you said you owed me a drink.” 

He has never met this woman before, she won’t even give her name, and yet, she rummages in her pocket and takes out a pack of smokes and lights one for herself, then one for him. He takes it, if only to be polite and when he doesn’t immediately take a drag, she lets go and looks at him with a frown and her eyebrows furrowed. 

“Maybe you’re right.” The awkwardness is heavy and he doesn’t know what to do with the cigarette as she walks off, but the smell reminds him of a home he knew and he keeps on walking, in the opposite direction as her, and starts smoking on the way. He expects a rush, the inside of his cheeks to feel warm and a gentle burn in his lungs, but yet, he doesn’t find it. Disappointed, he goes to a convenience store and buys a packet anyway, with only the memory of the packet she held in her hand to guide his choice. 

Something in his memory tells him not to smoke in the apartment, and at 10am, 1pm, 5pm and 11pm he makes his way to the roof to sit with his feet dangling off the side of the building and he burns his way through two cigarettes. It is a habit he builds quickly, even though he doesn’t feel anything but the anxiety of missing his dedicated slot when he is too late returning from the markets. While he sits on the roof, overlooking another tower block, he writes in his journal: _I think I remember the sea? Was it a sea? Was it a river?_. 

_I don’t remember being alone, I remember I had a mother, I remember I had at least one sister, I wasn’t alone._

_I remember blonde hair and blue eyes._

_I think I read about him in a museum._

When it rains, he doesn’t sit on the edge, for fear of the pages getting damp, instead, he sits under the canopy, cross legged and with his elbows on his knees, silent and still. No one comes to the roof, the air up here is heavy with the pollution of the city below, no one dries their clothes on the roof like he thinks he used to do.  
His sleeping bag is the only thing he sleeps with but the chill in the air of November reminds him of being young and at the same time, reminds him of being frozen and his final gasps before his eyes closed. He doesn’t buy another blanket-- he isn’t going to be here long, he tells himself and at least a single sleeping bag is compact enough for him to take along with his one backpack. 

He dreams of blonde hair and blue eyes. 

He dreams of a smile that isn’t his own and he dreams of the warmth that spreads through him, blossoming out from his chest to the very tips of his fingers and toes when he sees that smile. He knows it’s a man that is making him feel this way, and he has his picture taped into one of the pages of his journal. 

The man appears in his apartment one morning, he finds him standing by the refrigerator, a shield on one arm and his head down, as if reading from a hymn book on two bended knees. He is almost silent as he moves, he knows this, he knows he is built for sneaking, for stealing, for hurting others; these are the freshest memories in his mind. The American accent, so similar to his own hurts, yanks the breath out of his chest; finally the burn in his lungs he had been searching so long for. For a second he is embarrassed at the bookshelf made of cinderblocks and planks of wood, for the sad mattress on the floor and the grubby sleeping bag, for his tattered henley and baseball cap. It has been a while since he was this nervous, his lip twitches as the man turns around. 

The cowl he wears isn’t the same as in the photos that he has found in books, and neither is the suit; it’s darker; it actually looks like it could withstand a battle rather than the one he remembers. The shield is the same, his look of surprise is the same, and with the soft intake of his breath, he can remember walking in on him, smaller, sneaking in late with a bloody nose and knuckles and flicking the lights on, leaving him looking like a deer in headlights. 

“Do you know who I am?” He says in a low voice, leaning forward on the balls of his feet only just slightly, as if willing the right answer from him. 

Does he know? He blinks wordlessly a few times and with the second skipped heartbeat, he knows that man in his memory and his journal is called Steve and he himself is Bucky.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on twitter [@saltietangerine](www.twitter.com/saltietangerine), i admittedly don't post a lot of stevebucky nowadays but... considering i am currently on sick leave and in lockdown, i might rewatch and get feelings again :*


End file.
